Sorry, Shell, but something’s very wrong with one of your carbon offsets projects
The oil company has said it will conduct an internal review of the controversial Cordillera Azul project in Peru
In late August I wrote an article summarising some of the main criticisms that have emerged in the last couple of years in mainstream media, NGO reports and elsewhere about a particularly controversial carbon offsets project involving Peru’s third biggest national park, Cordillera Azul. “Sorry, TotalEnergies, but something is very wrong with your Amazon carbon offsets project,” the title ran. Although the focus was very much on the French oil and gas company TotalEnergies, as one of the two biggest buyers of the carbon credits from that project, it could equally have been on Shell, the other biggest buyer.
Since that article was published, it is worth emphasising, yet more criticisms of the Cordillera Azul project have emerged - or, at least, some of those same criticisms have been endorsed by other, equally credible third parties. One example is the utterly damning report on the US-based company Verra and its carbon market registry by an “interdisciplinary team of political and natural ecologists and ecosystem modelers” from the University of California, Berkeley, which featured the Cordillera Azul project and highlighted some of the human rights allegations associated with it. What kind of allegations exactly? Above all, blocking access to land and land title, and failure to consult with - as well as obtain the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of - neighbouring indigenous communities who lay claim to parts of the park.
“[Cordillera Azul] is an example of a project that, although verified as compliant with [Verified Carbon Standard] requirements, nonetheless gave rise to community allegations of lack of prior consultation,” the Berkeley report states. “The estimated 321,000 community members living outside the park but described as having access to the park for subsistence hunting and fishing were defined as secondary stakeholders by the developer and not consulted prior to validation; instead, the developer described an intention to have monthly visits “to communities” to provide information and get feedback. This is permissible under the standard, as the developer is responsible for defining who project stakeholders are. However, affected Kichwa communities - whose land claims were never referenced explicitly in any project documents - have filed suit against the government and the National Park for lack of FPIC and for blocking access to ancestral lands. They also denounced the developer for exclusionary and nontransparent practices.”
Another example of Cordillera Azul getting more bad press is a global survey of carbon offsets projects by the UK-based CarbonBrief, which also featured it as an example of a project involving “harm to Indigenous peoples and local communities.” Their source is an Associated Press (AP) article from December last year. CarbonBrief describes that - in slightly misleading fashion - as “a report alleging that the Kichwa tribe had their hunting equipment seized by armed guards and lost access to their ancestral land when a carbon offset project was first established in the Peruvian Amazon.”
Yet another example is a UK parliamentary research briefing published yesterday which raises the issue of how efforts to protect the environment and climate can generate “justice and human rights issues.” In a section highlighting the “well documented human rights abuses in the supply chains of UK-destined products and materials”, the briefing cites Cordillera Azul, although it doesn’t mention it by name in the text - only in the foonotes.
“NGOs have identified that both carbon and biodiversity offsetting overseas have created human rights and justice issues,” the briefing states. “For example, the Forest Peoples Programme highlights how the use of protected areas for deforestation carbon credits has infringed the land rights of indigenous communities, such as the Kichwa peoples in Peru, and that their right to free, prior and informed consent has not been respected or protected.”
Meanwhile, the Kichwa’s land rights struggle rolls on, subject to the most extraordinary, frustrating twists. Late last month, the Peruvian state agency running the Cordillera Azul park, SERNANP, backtracked on recent agreements to begin what would have been an historic, precedent-setting process to demarcate the territories of three Kichwa communities that include parts of the park, leading Kichwa federations to issue a furious statement accusing SERNANP of lying and saying they will go ahead and demarcate their land by themselves.
“We condemn SERNANP’s lies and ramblings in the new Round-Table which has come to nothing because of its colonial attitude, and which doesn’t protect the Cordillera Azul’s forests anyway,” stated the three federations, known by their acronyms as CEPKA, FEPIKECHA and FEPIKBHSAM. “The only thing we think they’re interested in protecting is the interests of investors in the carbon market.”
How much longer can Shell - which was reported recently by Bloomberg and The Guardian to be “retreating” to some extent from carbon offsetting - continue to associate itself with this project? And how much progress has the company made with the “additional review” that AP reported, seven months ago, it had committed to conducting before potentially buying more credits from the project?
“Carbon credit projects are subject to periodic baseline reassessments to ensure they are transparent and credible,” a Shell spokesperson tells me. “As is required for all projects in the Verra registry every 10 years, Cordillera Azul’s project baseline is currently under reassessment. New credits cannot be issued until that process is complete. Shell routinely reassesses all carbon credit projects in its portfolio when new monitoring reports are issued or project baselines are reassessed. Once Cordillera Azul’s baseline has been reassessed, submitted to Verra for approval, and validated by an independent third party auditor, Shell’s technical team will also screen the project.”
In other words, Shell will conduct its own internal review once a third party auditor has validated the project, a process that is currently underway. Note the apparent assumption in the company’s statement that the auditor will definitely validate the project, rather than find against it!